ROWE (Results Oriented Work Environment) isn't about working from home, however. It's about supporting an environment that allows employees to nicely integrate their professional and personal lives in ways that work best for them.
We have an office. We are a results oriented shop that measures our performance on results, not hours worked. While sometimes we might choose to work from home, we generally work in our office. My employees, however, have no mandate to actually be in the office at any specific time except for one Monday afternoon meeting a week (which you can call into if you really need to).
I agree with the author, working from home isn't always a good idea. I'm not sure it's ever really a good idea actually. However, the flexibility for a parent to pick their kids up from school or take a day to go fishing to ponder a problem is huge. It results in happier employees, but also much more productive ones (at least in my experience stretching into teams of 50+).
This extends to vacation days, btw. We have unlimited vacation days. I only ask that for extended vacations (more than a couple of days) that you work with me so that we can keep the project nicely staffed and scheduled. That caveat is, of course, that your meeting my high expectations for actually getting stuff done. In part because of the character of person we hire, that's never been an issue.
I don't see why we have to confuse the two issues. Remote is not the same as flexible.
Most non-technical professional firms I've worked in evaluate performance solely on results. We book our own flights, we schedule our own meetings with clients, etc. In other words, the company expects us to be grown-ups and one either meets those expectations or ceases to be employed.
I've also worked for companies that are obsessed with hours. The worst was a software firm that was focused on an increasingly complex set of "flexi-time" rules designed, on the surface, to allow flexible work hours while maintaining some common work time and also enforcing "fairness".
In reality, I found that it was really just a way for managers to avoid having to deal with cracking down on lazy workers. Without the byzantine set of flexi-time rules they would have had to confront dead-wood employees and can them. The software firm was unsurprisingly filled with engineers with poor people skills that had become managers and were uncomfortable doing this.
Hire carefully, have high expectations, make them clear, be goal and result oriented, check in often and communicate well, and fire people that don't get their work done.
100% agree with comment above. I've never, ever seen a functional, professional services company where working from home was the norm or even a good idea. It's just that, as an adult, it's sometimes the most useful, necessary, and responsible choice.
Increasingly common among large ISV sales teams. Not my niche, but I know plenty of (almost exclusively) guys that used to hit the office every day but now work almost exclusively from home.
Question: How do you know the true capabilities of your employees when you measure work solely by results with no correlation to time? Does your company get a pay discount when an employee finishes a milestone in half the time?
I ask because from my perspective startups generally have a finite amount of capital and resources, and maximizing those resources is key to survivability. There is always work to be done, so until you've earned the stripes there is no cruise control.
I kind of hate this attitude. When you say "there's always work to be done", I take that to mean that you think the employees should always be working.
I think that if you're doing it right, you don't have to worry about the literal amount of time an employee is "working" or "not working". If you are treating your employees right, they will reciprocate, and they will be interested in making a great product, really interested. They will contribute in unexpected ways, and they will take care to perform outstandingly on a consistent basis because of the way you perform for them. You just have to be willing to give up that classical "I own your eight hours mwahaha" viewpoint.
Inspiration can't be scheduled; maybe if you would let your employees go home and play some video games, something in the game would trigger an idea that would result in huge wins for your company. Inspiration almost never arises in the face of intimidation, though. (Not good inspiration, anyway; maybe inspiration about how to sabotage, how to collect paycheck while manifesting passive-aggressive resentment and crossing fingers that the boss ultimately falls on his face and loses everything.)
You have to be reasonable about your expectations. People need to live balanced lives. You don't want workaholic employees, you want employees who lead healthy, good, balanced lives. Encouraging emotional starvation may look good on paper but it almost always results in lurking, pernicious, rarely-perceived-until-it's-too-late crumblings elsewhere.
There is always work to be done, on almost anything. Give your employees some trust and freedom, and as long as you're hiring mature professionals, you'll get much, much more than your initial investment back. It may not always manifest as extra time-in-chair, but it's always worth it. How can it not be? You let your employees live their lives, you empowered them to both live well and remain in control. That's always worth it.
You're making an assumption. My guys rarely, if ever, work more than 40 hours a week but 30 hours a week is unacceptable at this stage.
I agree with you about inspiration in some regards, I spent the first half of my career as a creative in the advertising industry. However, not staying focused on the problem you're solving is generally very dangerous when it comes to technology startups. If you think you need a lot of new and unique ideas every week, your startup will likely fail for a variety of reasons including but not limited to a sub-par product that does a lot of things but not one thing well, and a convoluted marketing message that confuses consumers.
Second, we're a team. There is no "I" that can sit at home and work whenever they feel like inspiration has granted them the ability to produce. I have to manage the product and UX (try communicating that over IM), another guy is responsible for the iPhone which is entirely supported by web services (a 3rd person).
Lastly, I've spent about 13 years working very closely with designers and developers, and I can't decide which group has the most self-appointed prima donnas. You either got it or you don't, but those that don't have a lot of reasons why they need special treatment. I generally avoid these people and I hope they avoid me. I don't have time to drop pedals in front of their feet where they walk. I go to great lengths to make our culture and work environment relaxed and enjoyable for the TEAM, but there's no room for loners who need special treatment just to create.
It seems like you are trying to figure out if you can get an employee to do more work then others for the same amount of money. The basic idea is that you pay people for the work they do. If they get it done quicker then others, that is none of your god damned business! Maximize those resources == screw people out of what they deserve. It's your job as an employer to figure out what a fair amount of compensation is for a certain level of work. If you don't have a clue, and can't do that, and instead are experimenting to see how much you can squeeze out of your employees, then I don't want to work for you. I suspect many high quality employees wouldn't.
Ideally, I'm paid to my level of competence, which means I work all day. I'd have to be a moron to produce many times more then others for the same reward.
Hell yes. Fishing per se isn't what I'd pick, but the freedom to use even small amounts of real solitude and calm surroundings in order to clarify thoughts - that would improve my work life immensely. I can think so much better without the constant bustle of people. There's really no polite way to tell everyone in an office to shut up and back off, because you need clear mind time to see a problem properly.
We have an office. We are a results oriented shop that measures our performance on results, not hours worked. While sometimes we might choose to work from home, we generally work in our office. My employees, however, have no mandate to actually be in the office at any specific time except for one Monday afternoon meeting a week (which you can call into if you really need to).
I agree with the author, working from home isn't always a good idea. I'm not sure it's ever really a good idea actually. However, the flexibility for a parent to pick their kids up from school or take a day to go fishing to ponder a problem is huge. It results in happier employees, but also much more productive ones (at least in my experience stretching into teams of 50+).
This extends to vacation days, btw. We have unlimited vacation days. I only ask that for extended vacations (more than a couple of days) that you work with me so that we can keep the project nicely staffed and scheduled. That caveat is, of course, that your meeting my high expectations for actually getting stuff done. In part because of the character of person we hire, that's never been an issue.
I don't see why we have to confuse the two issues. Remote is not the same as flexible.